


Gotta Work For It! Spring in Saint Petersburg

by Black_Tailed_Gull (ExpatGirl)



Series: Everything on the Ice [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (though that should probably go without saying), Blow Jobs, Domestic, Fanart, Feelings, Ice Skating, Katsudon Bang 2017, M/M, Minor Injuries, POV Katsuki Yuuri, POV Victor Nikiforov, Post-Season/Series 01, Saint Petersburg, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-09-29 22:39:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10146188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/Black_Tailed_Gull
Summary: He watches Viktor skate away and thinks again about competing against him in the not-too-distant future. He’d expected to feel dread, or panic—the familiar, sour bile churning at the root of him, but every time he’s looked for it, all he’s found is exhilaration. They both know Viktor doesn’t have many competitive seasons left. Maybe none, after this. Viktor is going fight for gold with everything he has in him. That, too, is just his way. The very least Yuri can do is offer him the same courtesy. It may be the last, greatest gift he can give. He feels the swoop and dive of anticipation within him, and cannot tell if it’s his own, or Viktor’s, or both.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **A note on names:** I go with 'Yuri' rather than the more phonetic 'Yuuri', like I'd normally do, because that's how the character himself writes it. I go with 'Viktor' rather than 'Victor' and 'Makkachin' rather than 'Maccachin' because of the Slavic hard 'c' sound. YMMV, of course.
> 
> Many thanks for [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) and [aerialiste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste) for beta-reading for me!
> 
> And thank you so much to Berry for stepping up to the plate at the last minute and doing the art! You can see more lovely works on [tumblr](http://youweremyridehome.tumblr.com/tagged/sometimes+i/). The illustrations for this work can be found [here](http://youweremyridehome.tumblr.com/post/159109366002), [here](http://youweremyridehome.tumblr.com/post/159109425972) and [ here](http://youweremyridehome.tumblr.com/post/159109295447)!

It’s almost spring when Viktor leaves Japan: the blossoms are still hidden in their boughs, but the barebones landscape hints at something warmer, in spite of the snow.

He knows spring’s still a long way off in Russia.

“Do you want help packing up your things?” Mari had asked one morning, as they watched the dog slowly chase some interesting scent across the yard.  One of those squirrels that resembled children’s toys, probably. She exhaled a cloud of smoke and steam, white against the pale blue wash of the sky.

“Help me pack?” Viktor shook his head. “Oh no, I’ll just hire someone to do it for me. Thank you.” He’d forgotten to look into that, and his flight was in three days.

She’d raised her eyebrows at that, and took a drag on her cigarette.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, smiling carefully. In so many ways she was Yuri’s opposite, but those eyebrows, and the crease between them—those were family traits,  and he knew better to ignore them.

“No,” Mari said. “That’s probably the least emotionally traumatic option for everybody.” She stubbed out her cigarette and wiped her hands on her apron. Viktor was immensely glad, yet again, that Yuri had never picked up the habit. “My advice? Take Yuri out for the day whenever the movers get here.”

“Skating?”

“I was thinking more like a movie,” Mari said, as she headed inside. “Something that will make him smile.”

“Something that will make him smile,” Viktor said. “Hmm.” He whistled for Makkachin.

“Be a good boy and don’t get mud everywhere,” he chided, as Makkachin headed for the water bowl, leaving damp pawprints in his wake. Viktor made his way down the hall and slipped into Yuri's room, without knocking.

Now, at the airport, neither of them are smiling. They stand, pressed against each other, so that there’s no air between them, and Viktor still has to go through security, and he’s pretty sure they’ve already started boarding and—

It’s Yuri who pulls away first. His eyes are bright and unseeing. _You know what they say about long goodbyes,_ Viktor thinks, as he leans forward kisses him, quick and decisive, leaving no time for tears. “You’ll send me photos every day, won’t you?”

Yuri nods, and very nearly doesn’t cry. “I promise.”

Viktor smiles, as much as he can. “Remember to give him the glucosamine tablets. You know how his hip bothers him.”

“I will."

He takes his passport from his coat pocket and feels his ring catch on the edge. “See you both in Saint Petersburg.”

Viktor drinks two bottles of champagne on the flight. When he turns his phone back on in the taxi, he has thirteen messages waiting for him. Ten are from Yuri. He ignores the other three.

“Did you know you left a box of your stuff under my bed?” This is followed by a series of photos of Yuri wearing various t-shirts Viktor has left behind. The final one’s a video, in which Yuri says nothing but proceeds to unbutton a white dress shirt—the one Viktor wore for the very first skating competition—for over a minute and a half. The tips of Yuri’s ears burn red but his eyes never leave the camera, and Viktor can’t breathe, he’s pinned; he remembers that look, being pressed against the wall in the silvery dark of the deserted alley behind the cinema. He touches the faint bruise on his neck, and feels his stomach jolt at the memory of the mouth that left it.

 

“Goodnight,” Yuri says on the video, smiling faintly, and that bastard, _he knows._

Viktor replays it twenty times before bed.

_****_

Yuri’s been in Saint Petersburg for a week, but he's barely set foot outside the door in all that time.

The first two days were lost to jet-lag, so tired that kisses dissolved almost unremembered into sleep. He vaguely recalls murmuring “how can you go to bed naked when it’s so _cold,_ ” on the first night; then it was morning, and Viktor was bringing him croissants, and sitting cross-legged on the bed, smiling at him as he ate, surrounded by the watered gold of an early spring sunshower.

“Here,” Viktor said. He reached behind his back, then held out a paper bag, pristine white with a silver seal. “Surprise!”

“What is it?” 

“Open it and see.”

“Oh! Are these…”

“Just like our dearly departed ones from Barcelona.”

Viktor plucked out an almond with a petal-pink shell. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, then at Yuri. His expression teetered somewhere between fox-sly and guileless. Yuri had become more than familiar with that particular look over the last year, and his fingers tightened reflexively, crinkling the paper.

“What?” 

Viktor reached out and pressed the almond against Yuri’s lips. “Open up,” he said softly, and so Yuri did.

He held it in his mouth for a moment, tasting the first flush of sugar as it dissolved on his tongue, and felt a strange bright shiver run through his body, like rainwater down the windowpane.

“Good, yes?” Viktor asked, in the way that meant he already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Yuri said, blushing and for once not hating it. Viktor watched him with that intent expression, waiting to see what he would do next. Yuri withdrew another almond from the bag, this one the color of a robin’s egg. He tilted Viktor’s chin up a little with his left hand, and saw the pale sunlight on his ring as he placed the almond in Viktor’s waiting mouth.

“You’re right,” Viktor said, after he swallowed. “It’s good.” Then he darted forward, knocking Yuri back against the pillow. Yuri barely managed to move the bag out of the way and avoid another nut-related disaster before Viktor was there, leaning over him, kissing him breathless.

He slid his hand under Viktor’s shirt, feeling the way the muscles in the small of his back tensed, ready to pull him down on top of him—that surprised little _oh_ always felt like a win—when Viktor’s phone rang.

Viktor groaned and reached over to the side table to look at the screen. “Yakov?” He dropped his head down until it rested on Yuri’s chest.

“You should answer it,” Yuri said, not bothering to remove his hand.

Viktor sighed and put the phone to his ear. Yuri understood “Hi, Coach,” before Viktor winced and held the phone almost at arm's length at whatever tirade Yakov was sending through the speaker. When Viktor spoke again, Yuri could hear his usual tone of cheerful apology, even if he couldn’t understand the words. Then Viktor hung up.

“What’d you forget?”

“I was supposed to meet the costume designer to finalize the sketches and decide on fabrics.”

 _Meet_ with the costume designer, which meant that she’d flown in from New York. Viktor never did tell him how much the exhibition skate costume had cost, declaring it a gift, but he’d seen the quality of her work in the _Eros_ and _Agape_ outfits, and he knew it couldn’t have been cheap.

“Oh, _no_.”

Viktor kissed Yuri’s cheek and sat up. “It will be okay. She can meet with the rest of the team first. Mila will keep her occupied for several hours, at least.” He glanced out the window, where the sun was shining more convincingly now. “That reminds me: what are you going to do about your costumes? She would be happy to design them for you this year, I’m sure.”  
  
“I...haven’t decided yet,” Yuri said. He’d only finished paying off last season’s, and he needed new boots. Not to mention the fact that he had two payments left on their rings. Something tightened in his chest.

Viktor looked at him, with a different expression now, but all he said was: “Okay, we can think about it another time. She’ll be here for a week, I think.” He paused. “And you're welcome to wear anything of mine. You know that, right?”

“Could it be you just like seeing me wear your things?”

Viktor tried, unsuccessfully, not to smile. “There’s also the option of wearing nothing. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d be happy with that artistic choice.”

Yuri threw a pillow at him, which he dodged with a flourish, his laugh glinting off the walls like a flash of blades.

The three days after that fell to a cold that saw Yuri sleeping on the couch, and Viktor serving him cups of tea sweetened with jam, which Yuri was prepared to hate, but found, to his surprise, that he didn’t.

“Try it, you’ll feel better,” Viktor said the first time, when Yuri couldn’t school his face into something less perplexed fast enough. “It’s an old remedy.” He nodded encouragingly and held out the mug.

“Th-thanks,” Yuri had said, slouching into a slightly more upright position on the couch. Makkachin yawned at his feet, and licked his ankle.

“But just in case!” Viktor shook a bottle of...something that Yuri couldn’t read. Aspirin, probably, or maybe Valerian. “Take two and call me—right now.” He looked at Yuri expectantly. “Well, do you like it?”

“It’s...very good, thank you.” He took two of the pills and sighed in relief and the heat from the tea soothed his throat. “Did your mother teach you to make this?”

Viktor pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked at Yuri, confused. “My mother? No, it was my first coach.”  Viktor pressed his palm against Yuri’s cheek and Yuri tilted his face up, waiting, but Viktor shook his head. “Ah, no kisses! I don’t want to get sick. Now,” he said, pulling out his phone, “what do you want to eat tonight?”

Yuri blinked. “I’m...sure whatever you make will be fine.”

“We don’t have anything in the fridge and I’m not leaving you alone when you’re sick to go grocery shopping! How does Italian sound?”

Now, at last, Yuri’s up. He’s alone, as usual for this hour of the morning, shaking the lingering fatigue from his body. He ignores the protests of his muscles as they’re forced to do work again. He’s been so good; the month that he and Viktor were apart, he’d poured himself into training with a kind of mad fervor so that he wouldn’t stay in bed all day. Yuri  knows, from the bruises that he’s glimpsed in the brief moments between shower and clothes, or climbing into bed and turning off the light, that Viktor’s done the same. It couldn’t really be any other way. He knows that, too.

But after a week of sleeping, punctuated mostly by pasta, he can feel all that hard work slipping away.

And, truth be told, he’s going a little crazy, stuck inside, even though he’s come to love this apartment.

He remembers the first time he set foot in here.  He thinks of Viktor, endearingly nervous and eager, as he ushered Yuri over the threshold all those months ago, before the Rostelecom Cup, asking: "Well, what do you think?"

He tries not to cringe when he remembers his reply. “It’s even nicer than it looked in _GQ_!” he’d said, and then immediately wished for the floor to open up beneath him so that he could die with a shred of dignity.

But Viktor had just blinked, then laughed and pulled him into a hug before his embarrassment could engulf him entirely. “I’m so glad you like it,” he said, his mouth almost cool against the flame in Yuri’s cheek. “You know,” And here his voice changed, taking on that teasing note that curled through all of Yuri’s nerve endings. “You’re welcome to use anything inside these walls. Anything at all.”

He laughs a little as he zips up his hoodie, thinking of what his expression must have looked like then.

Viktor had told him to rest for another day, but Yurio had texted him this morning, asking if he was going to bother showing up to practice or not, and the thought that he could be on the ice _right now_ but isn’t has suddenly become unbearable.

The bridge where Viktor said they meet in the mornings before training is only a few miles away. It’ll be an easy run to stretch his legs and take in the blue sky, and the city he now calls home. Yuri wonders what Yurio’s expression will be when he sees his hair. He's pretty sure he knows what Viktor's will be when he sees him running towards them, but he'd like to find out for sure.

“Come on, boy,” he says to Makkachin, adjusting the straps on his backpack and taking his keys—complete with one of the sixty Hasetsu Castle key chains that Viktor bought and now hands out at every chance—down from the hook. “Let’s go surprise them.”

****

Yurio’s grown an inch and a half over the last three months, and though he’s still waifish, there’s something more adult, more solid, about the set of his shoulders. He’s suffering from growing pains, skin pulled taut over bones that crack themselves into shape.

Viktor spends almost half an hour before practice massaging his legs one day, when he finds Yurio biting his lips and fighting tears as he stretches. It says something that he doesn’t complain once.

“I’ve put on two pounds in the last week.”  Yurio says quietly, somewhere to the left of Viktor's shoulder, after a few minutes. “I can feel my center of gravity shifting every day. My balance is shit.”

“Yes,” Viktor agrees. “I noticed.” He presses a thumb into the back of Yurio’s calf and waits until the muscle spasm subsides. “I remember what that’s like. You will need to learn to land jumps differently, and be patient while you regain your skills. And your fundamentals are good. That will help.” Yurio nods miserably. “Don’t worry, I don’t think you’ll be so tall as me. I grew three inches in one summer.” He sighs at the memory. “I wished I was dead.”

Yurio clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Stupid.”

“Yes. Other leg.” He works in silence for a few moments before saying: “Your mother skated even better after she finished growing. Maybe you will be the same.”

“Maybe.”

“Think how good you’ll be, then!”

Yurio has nothing to say to that.

When he’s done, he helps Yurio to his feet, then holds out his hand. “You know, Yakov is good, but it’s been a long time since he grew any way but sideways. I don’t think he remembers what it feels like. If you need help from me, you have it.”

“Yeah, right.”

Viktor frowns. “I mean it! My memory is a little better these days, I think. Besides, I’ll text Yuri and make him remind me to keep my promise. He never forgets anything that happens when he’s sober.”

Yurio looks at him, at his still-outstretched hand for another long minute. Then his chin ticks upward, and he reaches out to accept the handshake.

“Why don’t you come to our place for dinner some time?” Viktor asks, smiling. “I’ll give you a key.”

“I’ll think about it. No promises.” But he looks pleased as he bends down to touch his toes.

**** 

Somehow, it had never occurred to Yuri that Viktor Nikiforov would actually need to _train_.

He knew it from an intellectual standpoint, obviously. He’d read about Viktor’s training regime, in snippets, from magazine articles over the years. He’d tried to incorporate what he’d gleaned into his own training, hoping for a kind of alchemy: lead into gold medals.

He’d even trained _with Viktor_ , first in Hasetsu, then in other rinks. Of course, he’d been distracted in the beginning. He’d divided his attention between his own practice and trying not to have an aneurysm every time Viktor touched him. Which meant that his attention was divided most of the time.  And the exhibition dance had been different again—they had both been so thrown by skating that way, with another person, that they’d relied on all the _other_ ways they’d become physically and mentally attuned to make it work.

After a few weeks of that, it had become impossible to tell, at times, where Viktor’s thoughts ended and Yuri’s started. (Sometimes he swears he still feels a stray thought of Viktor’s flit through his mind, a bird from a far-off country.)

And then, of course, there’s the fact that he’s indisputably, terrifyingly good. Over the years, Viktor has meticulously cultivated an image of ease on and off the ice. Part of it is just Viktor’s way. So much of him _is_ easy: easy to love, certainly, instantly; easy to forgive; as easy to please as he is eager to please, at least in things that aren’t skating. Viktor never misses an opportunity to be delighted and that makes him easy to delight in.

Sometimes it seems preternatural. It’s tempting to think of Viktor in these terms, and often Yuri did, in the past: some lovely creature born from the ice, bending time and gravity to its will, like drawing in a breath and letting it out again. Even on the rare occasions he’d fallen in competition, it had been unfairly beautiful; he’d fallen the way a star might, luminous. Not a body of blood and bone, not like Yuri.

But blood and bone he is. Though his grace is something innate—though he rejoices in his body and all it does, in ways that still make Yuri’s chest ache—it’s still only a body: something to be calibrated like a machine, honed like a blade, _pushed._ Something that could break.

He hasn’t seen Viktor train on his own, not in earnest. Viktor is conscientious of Yuri’s time. He makes sure their schedules don’t overlap beyond the group training they all do once a week, under Yakov’s thunderous attention. He makes sure, too, that only one of their off-ice training days coincides. They’d discussed all this at length over Skype, while Yuri finalized his move to St Petersburg. Yuri had gotten what he wanted, more or less.

Viktor mostly does it out of concern for him. He’d never had a coach’s full attention before his year with Viktor; his parents just couldn’t afford it. Celestino had five senior skaters, sometimes six. Having a coach focused on him and _only_ him had been thrilling, and not just because the coach was Viktor. Now Viktor’s focus is, necessarily, split in a way that no one else has ever tried before.

And Yuri _worries_.

So Viktor trains before the sun comes up, dressing in the dark, mostly silent and mostly without complaint. He always leaves a note, and he’s always back before Yuri returns from the gym.

But Yuri is also coming to realize there’s another reason behind Viktor’s careful orchestration of their schedules: he does not _do_ distractions, not when it comes to his own skating.

On a grey day in April, he catches one of Viktor’s practices, and it drives this point home.  Viktor’s eyes hold no trace of their customary warmth, not the fierce blaze of competition or the steadier, softer flame that Yuri has come to know so well. It’s like watching a being with Viktor’s face, hunting some invisible prey. Yuri is reminded of his earlier not-quite-human view of him, and shivers.

Viktor skates past him four times, intent on a step sequence, without even noticing him waving.

“I bet that _stings_ , doesn’t it?” Yurio asks, lacing up his skates. “Try not to cry too much.”

“Huh?”

“Get used to it,” Yurio says. “You could set a bomb off in here and Viktor wouldn’t notice.” He removes the guards from his blades. “You get him when the ice is done with him, just like everybody else.”

 “Uh...I just...wanted...”

Yurio doesn’t let him finish. With a quirk of his mouth, he darts out onto the ice, right into Viktor’s path. Yuri cries out, anticipating a crash, but Viktor stops with heart-stuttering speed, in a spray of ice, inches from where Yurio stands. Yuri’s grasp of Russian consists of a handful of words related to dogs and food, but he recognizes an expletive when he hears one. In the distance, Yakov yells.

“Did you order take out?” Yurio asks.  
  
Viktor blinks, clearly not expecting English. “What?”

“Katsudon.” Yurio juts his chin towards the boards. “Go be distracting somewhere else. You’re fifteen minutes over, anyway.” 

Viktor stares blankly, like he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. Then, like a flood of light, he sees him and smiles, and he’s Yuri’s Viktor again. “Yuri! Hi! I lost track of time.”

“That’s okay.”

He grins, raking the sweaty hair back from his eyes. “I have to let Yakov yell at me for a few minutes. But we...oh, wait!” He collars Yurio, who lets out a squawk. “He’s wearing the t-shirt Yuko bought for his birthday, didn’t you see? Take a picture!” Yuri recognizes the tiger stripes, now that he looks.

“Let me go, idiot!” But Yurio makes no effort to get away, and very nearly smiles when Yuri takes out his phone.

“It looks good on you,” Viktor says, squeezing his shoulder.

 Yurio ducks his head, but isn’t quick enough to hide that he’s actually smiling now. “Send me a copy.”

“Sure,” Yuri says as Yurio skates away. “Have a good practice!”

“Get a haircut!”

Viktor laughs, but then realizes that Yakov has gone ominously quiet. “Ah. I...I’d better go get some feedback.”

“Want me to wait for you in the changing room?”

Viktor laughs again. “Tempting. But no, wait for me out front.” He skates over to where Yuri stands, and bows down to kiss his hand. “I’ll take you out for coffee, to make up for being late.”

"I'd like that."

“Viktor!” Yakov shouts. “This isn’t your personal ice rink!”

“Ah. Duty calls.”

He watches Viktor skate away and thinks again about competing against him in the not-too-distant future. He’d expected to feel dread, or panic—the familiar, sour bile churning at the root of him, but every time he’s looked for it, all he’s found is exhilaration. They both know Viktor doesn’t have many competitive seasons left. Maybe none, after this. Viktor is going fight for gold with everything he has in him. That, too, is just his way. The very least Yuri can do is offer him the same courtesy. It may be the last, greatest gift he can give.  He feels the swoop and dive of anticipation within him, and cannot tell if it’s his own, or Viktor’s, or both.

****

Viktor’s love for ice has limits, and this is one of them.

He regards the water in his bathtub the way he might a burned cup of coffee, or a poorly-cut suit. A layer of ice cubes crackles on the surface. This is nothing like stepping into a mid-winter pool, where he could swim and move so that the cold water became invigorating. He nearly reaches for the plug. But as he does so, the reason for this whole endeavor reasserts itself in the electric spiderweb of pain that flares along his back and legs.

Training has been brutal. It always is, but every season he manages to forget, and the year off hasn’t done anything to improve his memory. Viktor thinks it’s probably necessary, this kind of forgetting, or he might have quit a long time before now.

Today had been particularly frustrating, though, ending with him sagging against the boards as Yakov ordered him home.

“You pushed yourself too hard.” Yakov had said, in the changing room. Viktor had dutifully stripped down to let Yakov press thumbs and elbows in various muscles, and attempted not to grimace. “We don’t want a repeat of Osaka. No physical activity, three days.”

“But…”

“No. Not even that. When you return, we’ll spend a day on compulsory figures. Then extra training in the dance studio. Make a physiotherapy appointment if you need to, but you will listen to me on this, Vitya.”

“Yes,” Viktor said. “Of course. I could...lose another three or four pounds as well, maybe.”

Yakov gave Viktor’s body one last quick, dispassionate look. “No. This is fine. I’m happy with your last weigh in.”

Viktor allowed himself to think of the honey cake waiting for him in the fridge. “Alright,” he said amiably.

(Despite what Yakov sometimes says, Viktor isn’t disobedient—except, of course, in matters of aesthetics, where disobedience is absolutely vital. Where skating is concerned, he’s happy enough to trust Yakov with his body and its care. In other circumstances, Yuri holds that distinction.)

“Good. Go home.” Yakov straightened his coat: a thinking move. Viktor pulled on his sweatpants, and let him think. “Don’t mistake me,” Yakov said, after a moment. “I still think running off to Japan was one of the stupidest things you’ve ever done…”

Viktor paused with his shirt halfway over his head. “ _Really_? Even stupider than the time I…”

“ _One_ of the stupidest things. But the rest was useful, I begin to see. Your shoulder bothers you much less, for one thing.”

“That’s true,” Viktor said, sitting down and flexing his feet. “And my Achilles tendon. Other things, too.” Though this one, irritatingly, had decided to remind him of its presence.

Yakov nodded, and squeezed his shoulder.  “My body gave out by twenty five. Maybe it bought you time. Don’t squander it.”  He moved towards the exit. Yurio would be nearly done with his warm up by now. “Oh. And.”

 _Oh no_ , Viktor thought.

“One more thing.”

 _Damn._ He exhaled heavily. “Ice bath.”

“Ice bath.”

Viktor doesn’t let out a sound as he steps into the tub, though there’s no one here to hear him if he did. An old habit. After all this time, there are still echoes of dormitory life in him: he can’t abide a bare radiator, for instance, or a dripping tap. The sound of someone coughing in the dark still chills his blood.

He starts the timer on his phone, and sinks down.

 Barely two minutes pass, however (those first two minutes are the worst, impossible thorny blocks of time where it’s all he can do to keep his breathing even) when there’s the scrape of the key in the door, and then Makkachin makes a sleepy _wuf_ noise from the living room. He opens his eyes.

“Viktor?”

“Here.” He hears the dull double thud of boots hitting the floor, and smiles a little, imagining Yuri’s methodical coming-home ritual: boots by the door, then wiping the condensation from his glasses, then coat on the hook, next to Viktor’s, then scarf. Forty seconds in all.  Sure enough, forty five seconds later, Yuri’s pushing the bathroom door open and peering in. The tips of his ears are red, and his hair is damp. The late-season snow must have made good on its threat to fall.  “I didn’t expect you home yet,” Viktor says. “Did Mila scare you off?”

 “She’s very, uh...strong,” Yuri says, making his way inside. “But no. I got a text from Yurio. He asked if it was still okay to come over for dinner and...Viktor, is that ice?”

Oh, right. He'd invited Yurio over for dinner tonight. “Um. Dinner. Of course. Yes, it is, and...yes, it is. Ice, I mean,” Viktor says, shifting a little and hearing the ice slosh against the side of the tub. He winces, but the sharp bite of cold has receded, and the encroaching numbness is not unwelcome. He points at his phone. “Six more minutes.” He smiles, hoping to remove the concerned look from Yuri’s face. “Don’t worry, I’m thinking warm thoughts.”

But the look stays put as Yuri settles himself on the floor. “What happened?”

 “An old injury,” Viktor says, as lightly as he can manage. “Some are more stubborn than others about ignoring the healing powers of the onsen.”  Yuri is not placated and so Viktor sighs. “I’ve been...too enthusiastic in my training these last few days. It’s hard for me to remember that I’m an old man sometimes. But,” he says, widening his eyes, “that’s not the worst of it.”

  
“W-what?”

“ _No_ physical activity for three days, Coach’s orders.” He levels a deliberate look at Yuri. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain myself.”

 Yuri rolls his eyes at that, which is a comfort, because it means his initial fear is diminishing. “Physio?”

“She’s in Dubai until next week.” Over the years, Yakov’s stable of skaters have probably paid enough for her great-grandkids to go to college. But she’s the best in the city, and he doesn’t feel like flying to Moscow.

Yuri looks at him for a moment. “Do you have tape?”

“Tape?”

“KT tape.” Viktor looks at him, uncomprehending. “You know. It comes in different colors?”

Viktor shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

 “Okay, wait,” Yuri says, digging his phone out of his pocket. His brows draw together as he types, and then shows the screen to Viktor.

“Oh! Perhaps. Look in the closet? Maybe in the small trunk with silver…”

But Yuri’s already getting up and walking out with determined strides and Viktor’s left blinking at the open door. The timer starts beeping. “Thank god,” he says. Before he stands, he takes a quick selfie. His fingers are too cold to fiddle with filters, but the angle is good, so he posts it anyway, with the caption _No pain, no gain._

He dries off as quickly as he can, but it still takes awhile. “Yuri!” he calls, as he slides on his robe. “Put on some…” The coffee grinder roars to life. “Thank you!”

The walk to the bedroom is considerably less painful than his earlier walk from the door. He finds an array of colored tapes on the bed already, and before he can turn around, there’s Yuri, pulling the robe off of his shoulders. “Yuri, when you show initiative like this, I appreciate it, but…”

“Hush,” Yuri says, though Viktor can hear the smile in it. He places his hand on the small of Viktor’s back, and it feels like being touched by a live ember. “Where’s it hurt?”

“Uh.” Viktor struggles to think for a moment. “Right...there. And the hamstrings as well.”

He can practically hear Yuri frowning now. “A fall?”

 Viktor shakes his head, _no_ , then reconsiders. He’s warming up now, shivering, but Yuri’s hands still feel almost unbearably hot as they move across his skin. It’s not the clinical detachment he gets from Yakov, or any of the slew of medical professionals he deals with, but it’s different to how Yuri normally touches him. He makes himself still.  “Well. A fall a long time ago. Now, overuse.”

Yuri makes a disapproving noise and removes his hands. “You’ll need to lean forward,” Yuri says. “Forearms against the wall.”

 “Um.”

“For the _tape_ , Viktor.”

“Of course, yes, for the tape,” Viktor says, settling himself into place and resting his forehead against the wall. This part is probably not necessary for the current situation, but he’s testing a theory. “Too much risk of bruising,” he says under his breath, and presses his cheek to the wall instead. “Better.” 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Hm. What color do you want?”

“Whichever you think suits me best.” There’s a pause, and Viktor considers the bowl of peonies on the dressing table. Then he hears a faint tearing sound. When Yuri touches him again, he feels the catch of adhesive move in a vertical line on his skin. “Well, which color did you go for?”

 “I closed my eyes and picked at random,” Yuri says, in his _I’m-concentrating-on-my-task_ voice. He runs his hand over the place where he’s applied the tape, a practiced downward motion. His voice is different when he leans in to say: “Because you suit every color, so it didn’t matter.”

 Viktor lets out a surprised little laugh at that, and turns his head to place a quick kiss on the side of Yuri’s face.

Yuri sinks to his knees at some point, kneeling on the rug he’s pulled over from the center of the room. He moves Viktor’s leg further away from the wall. He’s slow and methodical, careful, and Viktor finds himself drifting as Yuri continues. “You’re pretty good at this,” Viktor observes.

“Learned it at college. It was part of my major. When did you fall?” Yuri asks, as he continues his work.

“Oh,” Viktor says, coming back to himself. “I don’t...remember the year. I was, hmm, seventeen, maybe? Eighteen? Whenever I did my short program based on Odile from _Swan Lake_. The costume had a mesh back so I could show off my shoulder blades.”  He laughs. “I was still going through my black phase, then.” Yuri’s hands have stopped. “Yuri?” He glances down. “Why do you look at me like that?”

“I remember that season! You didn’t fall once.”

“In competition? Fortunately, no.” Yuri is still watching him with wide, strange eyes, and his palm is still cupping Viktor’s calf. There’s a forgotten strip of tape in his other hand. “In practice? That’s another story. It was in Japan, actually. Right before the NHK Trophy.” He makes a rueful face. “I skated through it, but...not my best performance.”

“You only missed silver by half a point!”

“I did, yes.” He smiles and throws Yuri a wink. “I have learned to accept that.”

Yuri clears his throat, and suddenly seems to remember what he’s doing. He’s concentrating especially hard on this section as he says: “That was the first time I ever saw you skate live.”

“Really?”

Yuri looks down, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the tape, and Viktor can see the blush creeping up the back of his neck. “I’d saved my money for months, but my parents couldn’t take time away from the inn, and Mari was at college. So…” The next sentence comes out in a rush. “I decided I was going skip school and go to Osaka by myself.”

“Rebellious from the very start,” Viktor says, feeling thoroughly warmed through, in ways that have nothing to do with his circulation.

“I’m not very good at keeping secrets,” Yuri says, picking up Viktor’s foot and flexing his leg. “In the end, I went with Nishigori and his mother. I think my own mother bribed her.”

Viktor laughs in earnest at that, dropping his head forward, almost to his chest. “Well,” he manages, when it’s passed, “I’m only sorry I didn’t do a better job. All that work you put in just to see me, and I couldn’t even get silver for you.”

Yuri stands suddenly, and before Viktor can fully process what’s happening, his back hits the wall. His head is spared the same fate by Yuri’s hand. “Hey,” Yuri says fiercely. “That was one of the most beautiful performances I’d ever seen. Watching it, I felt…”

Viktor swallows audibly. “You felt what?”

Yuri looks like he might shrink away—his emotions are so like the ocean sometimes: stillness, and then a great wave, a crest and then a retreat—but he continues to meet Viktor’s gaze. “I felt. Well. I felt...surprised.” A smile touches his lips, because he knows exactly which button he’s pushing. “That it could be better in real life than on TV. I thought it might be disappointing but…no.”

He presses against Viktor. “No,” he says more quietly, and the fire in his eyes has mellowed but not extinguished. It drives away the last lingering chill from the ice bath. His free hand comes to rest on Viktor’s hip. “You’ve never disappointed me.”

When Yuri kisses him, Viktor’s head fills momentarily with static, like a radio in search of a tune. Then his blood sings. And then it begins moving southward.

“I got gold at the Junior Nationals the next year,” Yuri says, unexpectedly, when he breaks the kiss.

“What?”

“The year before my senior debut. I got gold. I, uh, borrowed one of the step sequences from your _Swan Lake_ program. Well, I changed it a little, but…” He ducks his head but does not look at all ashamed.

Viktor doesn’t bother saying that he’d seen Yuri skate enough times before Sochi to clock him both as serious competition and as a fan. Viktor saw echoes of himself in the way Yuri skated—certain postures, arm movement, and, yes, even step sequences—from the beginning, though Yuri, like all the best skaters, made them his own, and in some ways even surpassed Viktor. He never expected Yuri to admit it out loud, though. The fact that he has makes Viktor feel like he might melt. “So ambitious,” he says, and kisses Yuri. “I’m going to have to repay the compliment, you know.”  
  
“Huh?”

“Well, three times now you’ve done me the honor of performing something of mine,” Viktor says, turning his attention to Yuri’s neck. “What kind of fiance would I be if I didn’t do the same?”

Yuri flinches like he’s touched a live wire, and pulls back to look at Viktor’s face. “You’ve _never_ borrowed from anyone’s routines, Viktor.”

“I know. Imagine how surprised they’ll be!” He’s already thinking about it, his attention drifting again as he thinks of Yuri’s old routines. “I’ll put my own spin on it, of course, just as you did but…”

“But why would you want to use something of _mine_?” Yuri interrupts. “Not as...as a...fiance. I mean as a _skater_. I don’t…”  
  
“Why would I want to try and learn something from the top figure skater in Japan, you mean? One of the six best in the entire world? Someone who skated so beautifully last year, he got Russia to shout his name, instead of mine?  Hmm. I don’t know, Yuri, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps a man like that has nothing to teach me at all.”

Yuri stares at him, slack-jawed and—and those are tears. Viktor doesn’t have time to judge their quality—if they’re the _I love you_ kind or the _you fucked up_ kind—but then Yuri’s face is against Viktor’s shoulder, and his arms are around his waist and Viktor allows himself to relax a fraction. “Yuri…”

Yuri turns his head and dries his face on his sleeve. When he looks at Viktor again, his eyes are soft for a moment, before they spark with something dark and mischievous. He pushes Viktor more firmly against the wall.

“No physical activity, right?”

Viktor shakes his head, trying to clear it. “Coach’s orders,” he repeats, a touch hazily, because Yuri’s hands have begun stroking along Viktor’s sides, his chest, his shoulders. Kisses follow in their wake.  In this, too, Yuri is meticulous and attentive. Part of it is nervousness, still, and perhaps always, but most of it is just Yuri’s way of showing love: he takes Viktor apart with great care.

“Hm.” Yuri glances up. “I guess,” he says, smiling and sliding back to his knees, “that you’ll just have to keep as still as possible, then.”

Viktor gives one short, jerky nod and he can instantly tell Yuri’s not going to let him get away with that right now. Yuri raises his eyebrows and Viktor can almost _hear_ the thought in his head. “As still as possible,” Viktor says. “I’ll try my best.”

Yuri grins, sweet beneath the playfulness. “I know you will.”

Viktor’s toes flex against the floorboards as Yuri takes him into his mouth, but he manages to stay still, mostly. For a few silent minutes he maintains his composure, until Yuri looks up at him again with those impossible eyes, and Viktor can’t quite keep in the sound he makes. He began running his fingers through Yuri’s hair at some point without noticing. Apparently this carries no penalty, though, because Yuri lets him continue, and so he does.

He’s tired, and he’s in love, so he doesn’t mind that it only takes him a few more minutes before he feels himself teetering on the edge, aching like a violin string just as the bow is set. “Okay,” he says, and feels Yuri caress his hip. He lets his head tip back, at last, and comes.

Yuri rests his forehead on Viktor’s stomach for a few breaths, and then he stands. He watches Viktor for a moment more before pulling him into a hug. Viktor feels him inhale deeply.

“You know,” Viktor says, thinking that maybe he should go sit down. “I love the way you look at me, after.”

“Hm?”

“Very pleased with yourself, because you like what you’ve done.”

There’s a note of embarrassment in Yuri’s voice as he says Viktor’s name.

“What? It looks good on you! Of course, I like how you look at me before. And also during. But after is probably my favorite.”

Yuri laughs against his shoulder and lets himself be praised.

“I like how you look at me almost all the time,” Viktor says, not particularly caring if he babbles. Yuri’s used to it by now. “Except, of course, when you’re mad at me, or when I forget my keys and lock myself out. Or when…”

“Viktor.”

“But most of the time. Especially now.” He nuzzles Yuri’s hair, which smells like Viktor’s shampoo these days.  

“Well,” Yuri says. “I like looking at you.”

Viktor’s just about to make a quip about that when there’s a knock at the door, causing Makkachin to bark.

“Damn it,” Yuri says, drawing away. “I didn’t think it was so late.” The knock comes again, louder this time, then another set of noises that sound like the heel of a shoe meeting the door. “I don’t understand,” Yuri says, looking at Viktor. “Doesn’t he have a key?” Yuri wipes his mouth and straightens his sweatshirt self-consciously, tugging it down over his hips, then hurries into the living room. “Get dressed!” he whispers as he closes the door. Then, louder: “Coming!”

“Let me in, for fuck’s sake!” he hears Yurio yell. “I’ve got a shitload of groceries here.”

Viktor would very much like to sleep for the rest of the day, and maybe most of tomorrow. Instead, he sighs and gamely begins putting on the clothes he’d laid out on the bed, rather than flopping face-first into the eiderdown.

“Why did you bring...groceries?” Yuri’s asking as Viktor emerges from the bedroom.

“Because I’m cooking _manti_ and I already know you don’t have the stuff for that.” Yurio walks to the kitchen with the same determined look he gets before a competition.

“But…” Yuri looks at Viktor, who shrugs. “ _We_ invited _you_ over to eat.”

“Yeah, and?” Yurio asks, and his center of gravity seems just fine as he bends and stretches to look in every one of the cupboards. “Viktor, I swear to god if you don’t have a steamer I’m going to kick your a—oh, there it is.” He holds the steamer up triumphantly, like a trophy. Then, he notices Yuri’s puzzled face. “Look, do you want me to make these or not?”

“Ah...yes, of course,” Yuri says, bowing slightly, and looking no less confused. “Thank you.”

“That would be very nice,” Viktor agrees.

At this, Yurio grins. “Great. Now, stay out of my way. You know Yakov will yell at us both if you hurt yourself worse.” He points at the couch with a face like a thundercloud, and Viktor sits, amused. “You, too, dog,” Yurio says, nudging Makkachin with his toe. “These are _not_ for you. Oh, and I’m putting another pot of coffee on. What the hell, this one’s gone completely cold.”

“Oh!” Yuri says, blushing furiously and sinking down onto the couch next to Viktor. “I...forgot.”

Yurio rolls his eyes but doesn’t seem particularly annoyed. He rummages in the bags. “These are Kazakh-style,” he says. “They’re amazing. You’ll love them.”

“I’m sure we will,” Yuri says, laying Viktor’s legs across his lap, which Makkachin immediately takes as an invitation to join them.

Viktor listens to the rise and fall of their conversation and is struck, suddenly and overwhelmingly, with memories of all the people who have been in this room with him. He’s had parties here, of the polite and not-so-polite kinds, among polite and not-so-polite company. Lovers, certainly—enough that Georgi used to grouse that he had a new one for each season. Viktor still remembers most of their names.  But none stayed, and after a while, he’d stopped wanting them to. For all the years he’s lived here, this apartment has always seemed like somewhere to leave, rather than somewhere to come back to. This feels different, somehow, more solid, like he’s finally landed a jump that’s eluded him for years. Yuri’s running his hand absently along his leg as he talks to Yurio, and Viktor grabs it, just to hold it and feel the reassuring way Yuri laces their fingers together. He falls asleep that way: the soft and dreamless sleep of well-loved voices in familiar walls, warm, and at home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've only hinted a little bit at Viktor's Tragic Backstory in this (but man, do I have a Lot of Headcanons). However, if his complete lack of family in the series, and his comments that suggest that he didn't always have money are any indication, it's fair to say the immediate post-Soviet period probably wasn't very much fun for him. Thank goodness he's leading a happy life now!
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. :)


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